Western Balkans Investment Readiness Surveys 2015-2018

Croatia, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, 2015 - 2018

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Reference ID

ECA_2015-2018_WBIRS_v01_M

DOI

https://doi.org/10.48529/jc7h-jp88

Producer(s)

David McKenzie

Collection(s)

Development Impact Evaluation (DIME) Impact Evaluation Surveys Fragility, Conflict and Violence

Metadata

DDI/XML JSON

Created on

Jul 10, 2019

Last modified

Apr 27, 2021

Page views

77499

Downloads

1560

Identification

Survey ID number

ECA_2015-2018_WBIRS_v01_M

Title

Western Balkans Investment Readiness Surveys 2015-2018

Country/Economy

Name	Country code
Croatia	HRV
Kosovo	KSV
North Macedonia	MKD
Montenegro	MNE
Serbia	SRB

Study type

Enterprise Survey

Abstract

Innovative firms with good ideas may still struggle to fine-tune them to the stage where they can attract outside funding. We conduct a five-country randomized experiment that tests the impact of an investment readiness program. Firms then pitched their ideas to independent judges. The program resulted in a 0.3 standard deviation increase in the investment readiness score. Two years later, the average impacts on firm investment outcomes are positive, but small in magnitude, and not statistically significant. Larger and statistically significant impacts on receiving outside funding occur for smaller firms, and for firms with lower likelihoods of otherwise being funded.

Kind of Data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Coverage

Geographic Coverage

Firms which entered the investment readiness program were drawn from Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia

Universe

Firms which applied to the investment readiness program

Producers and sponsors

Primary investigators

Name	Affiliation
David McKenzie	World Bank

Producers

Name	Affiliation	Role
Ana Paula Cusolito	World Bank	co-PI
Ernest Dautovic	European Central Bank	co-PI

Funding Agency/Sponsor

Name	Role
European Commission	Funder
World Bank i2i Trust Fund	Funder

Sampling

Sampling Procedure

To participate in the program, a firm had to be legally registered in at least one of the five countries: Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro or Serbia. The firm had to be a micro, small, or medium-enterprise, defined as having fewer than 250 employees, and an annual turnover below 50 million euros. It had to be innovative, meaning that “it will in the foreseeable future develop products, services, or processes which are new or substantially improved compared to the state of the art in its industry, and which carry a risk of technological or industrial failure”, and could not be on a sanctions list or operating in a set of negative activities (e.g. gambling or alcohol production).
Applicants had to apply online, with the data from this application form providing the baseline data for this study. More than 1,200 applications were started online, and a total of 584 full applications were received. These were screened for eligibility, resulting in 346 firms being selected as eligible for the program.

Response Rate

Our main outcomes come from two rounds of follow-up surveys, in which we attempted to interview all firms, not only those who had participated in the pitch competition. The first round, intended to measure short-term effects, was taken between April and August 2016, corresponding to a period of approximately six months after the end of the investment readiness program and judging. The overall survey response rate was 79.2 percent, and does not differ significantly between treatment (79.9%) and control (78.5%). In addition, we collected information on operating status, number of employees, and whether negotiations for an outside investment had occurred for a further 12 percent of firms , resulting in basic data being available for 92.2 percent of firms.
The second follow-up survey took place between August 2017 and March 2018, corresponding to an average of two years since the intervention. The overall survey response rate for this second follow-up was 85.0 percent, and again does not differ significantly between treatment (86.2%) and control (83.7%), with data on firm operating status and receipt of equity available for 94.5% of firms.

Survey instrument

Questionnaires

The questionnaires for the Western Balkans Investment Readiness Surveys were organized as follows:

Application Form : Pioneers of the Balkans
Pioneers of the Balkans - Follow-up survey (spring 2016)
World Bank "Pioneers of the Balkans" - Follow-up Survey 2017

Data collection

Dates of Data Collection

Start	End	Cycle
2015-08	2015-09	Application Data
2015-11	2015-11	Judges score firms
2016-04	2016-08	First follow-up
2017-08	2018-03	Second follow-up

Data Access

Confidentiality

Is signing of a confidentiality declaration required?	Confidentiality declaration text
yes	Identifying information has been anonymized or removed.

Access conditions

Public access for research purposes only.

Citation requirements

Cusolito, Ana, Ernest Dautovic and David McKenzie (2019) Western Balkans Investment Readiness Surveys and Replication Code 2015-2018. Ref: ECA_2015-2018_WBIRS_v01_M. World Bank. Downloaded from [url] on [date].

Metadata production

DDI Document ID

DDI_ECA_2015-2018_WBIRS_v02_M_WB

Producers

Name	Affiliation	Role
Development Economics Data Group	The World Bank	Documentation of the DDI

Date of Metadata Production

2019-07-08

Metadata version

DDI Document version

DDI Document - Version 02 - (04/27/21)
This version is identical to DDI_ECA_2015-2018_WBIRS_v01_M_WB but country field has been updated to capture all the countries covered by survey.